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Top Retailer Awards

The show floor at the summer Buyers Market of American Craft was buzzing with excitement as retailers and artists alike took time out from shopping and selling to honor America’s top craft retailers. The annual NICHE magazine Top Retailer Awards, held July 13 at the Baltimore Convention Center, honored 13 stores, galleries and museum shops, as well as a number of unsung heroes of the craft world.

: Three new categories, honoring craft’s unsung heroes, were introduced during this year’s Top Retailer Awards ceremony.

Founded by NICHE magazine to recognize the achievements of American and Canadian retailers who carry handmade North American art and crafts, the Top Retailer awards are in their 18th year. They have evolved to incorporate special categories including best arts nonprofit, best museum store, best website and best visual merchandising. This year, three new awards were added to honor individuals and associations that advocate the arts.

The first NICHE Honors Award for Advocacy on Behalf of American Craft was given to U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont. The senator led the charge to put American-made products in Smithsonian museum gift shops, replacing foreign-made items. His outspokenness drew national media attention, and as a result, the first ever “Made in America” gift shop has opened at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History.

PA Artisan Trails of Newport, Pa., was the first recipient of the NICHE Honors Award for a Cultural Tourism Project. The organization’s program utilizes rural roadways to guide visitors on artistic adventures to art galleries, shops, boutiques, rural hideaways and one-of-a-kind eateries in Pennsylvania.

The first ever AmericanStyle Honors Award was given to Julia Daily, the executive director of the Craftsmen’s Guild of Mississippi. Created to recognize the silent heroes of the craft world, the award went to Daily for her tireless efforts to increase awareness of handmade American craft through the guild’s “I am a Craftsman” campaign and with the creation of the Producers-Only Market. She has also spearheaded the continued success of the Mississippi Craft Center of Ridgeland, Miss., which was recently voted the top tourist attraction in the state.

The biggest winner of the day was Don Muller, who received the 2011 Retailer of the Year award for the Don Muller Gallery of Northampton, Mass. Considered exceptional in all aspects of business—from store design to customer service—the gallery has consistently raised the bar for craft galleries across the country.

: The winners of the 2011 Top Retailer Awards include (from left): Monica and Aaron Maxwell, of Harmony Ridge Gallery; Barbara Kittrell, Kittrell/Riffkind Art Glass; P.J. Heyman, Village Artisans Gallery; Wendy Rosen, founder of Buyers Market of American Craft; Don Muller, Don Muller Gallery; Ingrid Brown, The Villager; Megan Blake Horst, Absolutely Art; Julia Daily, winner of the AmericanStyle Honor Award; Lesley Grow-Winfisky, Grow Gallery.